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Friday, 5 June 2015

Ahoy landlubbers, the NDP have set sail

For Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada, it was supposed
to be easy. Set yourself up as the only alternative to the hated Stephen
Harper. Line up the gunwales and fire your cannons at the skull and crossbones.
Find that breezy middle, and promise things like “fairness” and “transparency”.
Tack to the polls on security. The evil pirate ship will assuredly fire back,
but their grapeshot will not even tatter the yardarm of your noble vessel. Gallant
ensign Trudeau will pull a head and sail across the finish line, firing his
guns in triumph.

The damage done?

The strategy was, it seems, set in stone. But, given changing
currents and winds, that’s no certain way to win a naval battle. In fact, it
might just sink you. As the NDP moved up in the polls and jockeyed with the
other two parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals were still pouring their
money into advertisements, attacking each other. They jumped each other’s decks,
swords drawn, and the NDP, more or less ignored, sailed right past the fracas.

What to do now that the NDP have pulled into the lead, with the
Conservatives in irons, the Liberals flapping in the wind, and both parties
taking on water from the damage they’ve done each other?

For the Conservatives, who have little room on the upside,
the job is nonetheless straightforward. All they have to do is what they have
excelled at all along: fear mongering. They’ll have no trouble going negative
on the NDP, painting them as soft on terror, soft on crime, soft on the
economy. The red menace is at the gates, and will pander to all their
lazy-assed union friends, as well as the bleeding hearts who want to expose us
to the crazies over the moat. The NDP will let the draw gate down, and Rome
will be sacked. Hide your kids, stuff your cash under the mattress, lock your
doors, get angry and stay angry. Pretty easy stuff.

But for the Liberals, the task is more daunting. They are
convinced that they represent the reasonable aspirations of the majority of
Canadians. They have a tax policy based on “fairness”. They want a more transparent
government. They want, ultimately, for us to trust them to do the right thing,
because they are inherently good and trustworthy.

So, how do the Liberals now winch their cannons over to the
NDP? They’ll do what the Conservatives do, and call the NDP economic
incompetents, claiming that the $15 federal minimum wage and national childcare
program are not properly costed. But the Liberals can’t sail too far to the right
on national security, because that is now their Achilles heel, and they don’t want
to look like patsies for the Conservatives.

Will it work? Only time will tell. One thing is certain:
with the NDP now firmly in the lead, and with more upside potential and better
leadership polling than Trudeau’s Liberals and Harper’s Conservatives, the cannons will now turn on them. We’ll have to see if this slows their surge, or if they
have what it takes to survive a sustained attack. After all, this won’t only
come from the other two political parties. We can expect a flurry of cautionary
punditry from the mavens at Post Media, CTV, the Sun, the Globe & Mail, and
even the Toronto Star.

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Podcast: Notes From The Underground

In the podcast Notes From The Underground TE Wilson discusses historical and contemporary attitudes toward crime. Each episode features a one-on-one interview that explores a unique topic. Interviewees include authors, experts, and individuals with personal experiences of crime. These podcasts were originally broadcast through the facilities of Trent Radio in Peterborough, Canada.

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Bicultural and transgender, detective Ernesto Sánchez seeks a missing Canadian woman on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Moving uneasily in a world where benign tourism co-exists with extreme violence, he becomes a pawn in a shadowy power-play between corrupt police and drug cartels. Forced to make hard choices – desperate, wounded, and friendless – Sánchez takes refuge in the lawless mountains of Oaxaca. And discovers his fate.

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